Beth Benike knew the prices were coming.
The Minnesota veteran invented a nacassemat with elastic strings that contain toys or utensils, keeping them out of the ground when babies throw them. This is one of the many products she has created for Busy Baby, a company she runs with her brother. They are made in China.
She expected and planned prices of around 20 to 30% this year. When the first tariff cycle arrived at 10%, it was manageable. Then, the rate on China has brought back, then again, 54%. It was her “Oh, shit moment”, but she thought she could resist her, she said to the Guardian.
It didn’t stop there, however. It climbed to 104%. She filmed a video of herself “in mid-fusion” on the extreme price, publishing it on her social networks.
Busy Baby is one of the many small American companies that should count with monumental prices that could close their livelihoods. Donald Trump’s growing trade war with China now includes a 125% rate on Chinese products in the United States. These companies have received just over a week to face a budget tax on their goods.
“After today’s announcement and the imminent price at 104%, I abandon my products in China. I leave them there because I simply cannot allow myself to ship them here,” Benike told his disciples on Monday, before Trump wins the price on Chinese products even further on Wednesday.
“At one point, hopefully, in the near future, China will realize that the days of tear in the United States and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” wrote Trump on Truth Social on Wednesday when he stopped tariffs on other countries.
Benike has already paid about $ 160,000 to make his products in China, and should pay more than that to bring them to the United States. So for the moment, she tries to understand other options: she could try to sell them abroad, or send them to another country to recondition them.
“I am terrified for my business, and I am terrified for all other small businesses in the United States at the moment, because we do not know what to do, and we are invested in our businesses. I could lose my house, and I do not understand it and I do not know what to do,” she said in the video.
After Trump’s last increase, Benike said she was planning to send paid products to Australia, where she has friends, to recondition them, then import them from there during the 90-day break because it is at least one way to obtain the products she has already paid in the United States.
Her business has grown since she founded her in 2017 and the distinctions accompanied her. She was appointed the little businessman of the minnesota year by the US Small Business Administration this year. She finally entered the large retailers – Target and Walmart – with small tests. These contracts, however, were signed before the prices. Walmart told her that he wanted to keep and extend his Busy Baby offers, she said, but she had a “difficult conversation” with the buyer this week to let them know that she cannot add a third product to their list because of the high prices.
“This has completely smothered my growth in retail retail, which has been our main objective for three years-to grow in this space,” she said. “Because as a small tiny business, it’s a huge success, huge for our brand. And now it is interrupted.”
The other option, what Trump wants, is a pipe dream: making his products in the United States. Benike would also prefer to make here. But a mountain of logistics, near the impossibilities, stands on its way.
Food quality silicone, which it uses for its products, is not available at the national level. When she examined the cost of importing equipment at first, it was more expensive than importing a finished product, and prices have increased since then. In the United States, manufacturing facilities with compression mold it required much more important races than it can engage. The minimum requirements for factories were 20,000 here – in China, it could do a few thousand at a time.
Make the molds for your products takes about two months. They are also made in China-many American manufacturers send American steel to China to Makemolds because they are better there, she said. Mussels alone would cost up to $ 75,000 in the United States. If it found a factory and the capital had to do everything, it would take a minimum of four months until it has products ready to sell, she said.
“It is financially impossible for me to manufacture here. But even if I had an angel that has just dropped a million dollars on my knees, it does not make sense as a business model for how much we would have to charge for the product and invoice the consumer, “she said. “It makes no sense. I would therefore understand the overview, or how they expect what we pray in this small window of time. I don’t understand, I just don’t understand that.”
She said that she now had about two or three months of product at hand, giving her a few months until she can theoretically go bankrupt if she does not understand anything else. If people buy what she has left, it gives her at least cash flow to buy her time to make new plans.
On Tuesday, she received a call from the Small Business Administration, she said. Someone there has seen their video, so she sends them information about her products and the factory machines she uses now. The agency will try to find a factory in the United States that could manufacture its products, but it does not hold its breath.
She decided to publish her video and talk about how prices affect small businesses because she has a community of supporters and other entrepreneurs who can help and compare herself, including some who know her about her appearance on Shark Tank.
Two years ago, during a difficult place different for her business, she had suicidal thoughts. The weight of being CEO was heavy. She thought that if she had gone, at least her family would have life insurance to live. She then obtained aid and learned the adaptation strategies.
The thinking of life insurance again appeared this week. She caught it quickly, remembering that “it’s something that my brain is playing on me right now, because it is not seeing a way out”. She wants other entrepreneurs to know that they are not alone because they face these prices. She has heard of some who sent her a private message to say that they feel the same pain, but cannot express himself because it is a commercial risk.
Some of the comments on his video and on the sites of new locals that have written on his situation were not nice. Some have said, you voted for that, or you deserve it if you voted for Trump. She didn’t vote for Trump, she said, but she doesn’t know why her political convictions count.
“No one deserves it. No one. It doesn’t matter to whom they voted,” she said. “Trump said he was going to make prices. We knew it. Yes, we knew that prices were coming. I would never have guessed in a million years that it would be like that.”
She has more than 15 patents for the products she created for “accidental affairs” she proposed after the birth of her son. She learned to start a business, to develop products, to create an e -commerce store. Now digging up huge prices is one more thing to learn.
“We have an excellent product, and it is an excellent product for babies. Babies exist in our world, everywhere on the planet, babies everywhere. I can’t fail, ”she said. “These are the livelihoods of my children. It’s my house. “
